said sternly. “And even I know it’s inappropriate and unacceptable conduct.”
“Why are you mad at me? At least I came up
here to appreciate what you’re doing. I’m the only girl on this
boat that gives a shit about you. If she cared she’d be up here
doing exactly what I am.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’ll take the
picture, and you stop acting like this.”
“I’m not acting like anything.” She nestled
down in the throne and adjusted the white triangles to her bikini
while posing. Then she lifted her arms to make sure the top rode
up, and the small swells of her breasts poked free. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” she lied. “But I’ll try…”
“You know exactly what I mean. You’re doing
your damndest to seduce me all the time when you’re too young and
I’m married.”
His words were a hard blow, because the idea
of her age was so disenchanting, and Camille felt like he just
stopped her heart with a one hard punch. She deflated, and suddenly
trying to impress him with a sexy pose seemed humiliating and
painful because he was rejecting when she was trying hard for him
to feel the opposite. Her arms dropped and she slouched slightly
while sulking—although she tried to hide her wounded pride. “So…you
know I love you and you don’t even care?” Her words sounded
valuable and somehow young, like her question was a response any
sixteen year old would have.
He chose the worst time to take a picture.
She was hunched over, probably showing her heartache, and it wasn’t
at all the sexy picture she wanted to torture him with for weeks.
The only appealing thing was the skimpy bikini, but from his stern
determination to convince her she was out of bounds, the
unflattering picture wouldn’t convince him she was appealing or
worth ever pursing.
He then came up to her. As if she were a
cat, he gently pet under her chin by crooking his finger a few
times, and simultaneously lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. “I do
care that you love me, which is why I’m ignoring it, Camille,” he
said softly. “And when you start sleeping with men and realize how
visual men are, you’ll appreciate my determination to ignore it
even more. Now get out of the chair, because I’m not going to ask
you again.”
She didn’t get up. Instead she grinned at
him. Not only did he admit to caring in a tone that seemed to prove
he felt far more than he revealed, but his soft caress felt
incredibly intimate because of how slowly he moved.
To her surprise, right when she wasn’t
striving to draw his attention to another sensual body part, Bruce
looked down at her lips. Inwardly she began to beg him to lean
forward and claim her by sealing his mouth to hers or even sweeping
a finger over her lips so she could kiss it, but he didn’t. He
simply smiled, and with genuine pleasure as if her attempts to get
his attention were quirky and charming.
Bruce then stepped away from her and looked
skyward. The shift in his attention drew her attention to the wind
which had picked up without her notice. A helicopter hovered over
the yacht, and drifted lower from a high altitude. Attached to a
cable over fifty feet below was another crate. Camille’s heart
leapt. She knew what it was carrying, but she still questioned him
with a giddy joy in her voice: “What’s that, Bruce?”
“I somehow just knew you wouldn’t deal with
Aubrey’s gift very well. So, it’s… you— in stone.”
“You’re going to sink me, too?”
“Yes,” he tore his eyes from the helicopter,
“I’m going to sink you.” Camille’s eyes snapped onto his, because
his statement sounded oddly sexual as if he didn’t say sink at all but fuck . Or maybe it was all in her head because she
wanted him to sleep with her. “After I finger paint them, of
course.” He brushed a hand over Aubrey’s stone shoulder.
Camille jumped off the throne, acting
without any thought or worries of what the consequences might be,
and threw her
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain